


A Soul For a Soul: a new hope

by SailorSlayer3641



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, olicity - Freeform, season 5 spec fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9967298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSlayer3641/pseuds/SailorSlayer3641
Summary: Based on the new info released for episode 5x16, this fic involves what Helix may ask Felicity to do, and why she’s willing to do it. It also involves who I think may be responsible for leaking the cover up of Malone’s death, and it’s not who most think.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi lovely readers,
> 
> I finally remembered to post this from over on tumblr. It's just a short little spec fic for how things might play out for Felicity in the next several episodes. A good deal of angst, but a hopeful ending!
> 
> Enjoy!

**  
**“How did we get here?”

His words are loud and abrasive…meant to intimidate her, but the vacuumed silence that follows is so much more deafening.

She can hear his feet shuffle against the floor, perhaps taking a step closer. She doesn’t know. Her eyes have been closed for a while now, blocking the outside world. She’s not ready to open them and see the look of disdain on his face. By now the rest of the team has filled him in on what she did to stop the impeachment hearings, to clear his name.

The answer to his question is simple, but one she’s not sure he’s ready or willing to hear.

A deflated sigh breaks the silence before he asks her again, this time more softly, his voice desperate and laced with confusion.

“Felicity…how did _we_ get here?”

Now that question is different. She’s not sure if she could ever fit the pieces back together and make sense of how things had unraveled so much. Their story is a complicated one.

Another minute passes before she turns her head, her cheek rubbing against the starchy fabric. She opens her eyes and the world is sideways. She sees him several feet away, his hands clinging to the metal bars separating the two of them.

She’s surprised to see fear and concern in his eyes…and sadness. But no disgust or loathing.

Sitting up slowly from the cot, she adjusts her glasses on her nose. Her following joke falls flat.

“Well, you know me. I binge watched every season of ‘Orange is the New Black’. Thought hey, let’s see what all the fuss is about.”

“This isn’t funny, Felicity. This is _your life_.”

With that she has to agree.

“You’re right. It is my life…and it’s my choice.”

“Sometimes you make stupid choices,” he retorts immediately.

“ _Hello_. Pot, meet Kettle,” she responds gesturing from herself to him.

He nods his head in agreement, all the while looking down at the concrete floor of the jail. His fingers are clenched so hard around the bars that they’re turning white. He looks up and meets her eyes. His are red-rimmed and her gut twists with the knowledge that she’s not worthy of his tears or concern.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come to me?” he asks hurt, and maybe rightly so. She’s not sure.

She takes a step closer, then thinks better of it. He needs to stay away from her.

“I couldn’t Oliver…I couldn’t drag you down into the darkness with me, not when you had just climbed your way out of it.”

The palm of his hand slams against one of the bars making it rattle. Tension coils in her chest, her emotions ready to bubble over.  

“I would follow you anywhere.”

“Exactly,” she says solemnly making her way to the metal bars.

“Don’t you get it?” she pleads with him, the tension in her chest mounting, tears pricking her eyes.

She clasps her hands over her stomach.

“I’m no good anymore,” she tries desperately to explain to him. She’s tarnished.

“Don’t say that Felicity, _please_.”

With each step she takes, she counts off her sins, determination filling her voice.

“My father, Cooper, Havenrock…Billy…and now Chase. I’m done fighting, Oliver.”

His hand shoots out between the bars faster than she can see. She’d gotten close enough for him to latch onto her arm and pull her closer.

His grip is tight on her shoulders, almost painful, almost shaking her.

“Don’t you _dare_. Don’t you dare give up.”

“I already have,” she tells him regretfully.

She had given up the moment that Adrian Chase, aka The Vigilante, had pulled the trigger ending his own life on live television. Helix had leaked the story about the mayor’s office covering up Billy’s death, staying true to their virtues as an organization willing to expose corporate and political corruption. She pleaded with them to fix it, and in exchange she just had to hack a few NSA servers. They in turn singled out Chase as the Vigilante, and the one responsible for the cover up.

She had killed another man so that everything good that Oliver was capable of could go on. She had bartered her soul for Oliver’s so he could stay in the light. His is worth so much more than hers.

“You are _not_ done fighting, and I believe in you,” he tells her, and she almost believes him.

“It’s not nice to plagiarize.”

“I don’t care. I’ll be damned if I watch the woman that I,” he starts defiantly, her breath catching on his words, “…the woman that I love, give up.”

She closes her eyes and smiles ruefully, a few tears slipping down her cheekbone.

“I don’t deserve to be a woman that you love.”

With that she tries to free herself from his grip, to walk back towards the darkness.

“No. _No_. I am not going to let you walk away from me again. I won’t let it happen,” he grits out, his hands moving to the back of her head.

He pulls her forward bringing their foreheads together. She grabs hold of the bars, not sure if she can hold herself up under his closeness. Tears start to fall in rapid succession as something starts to break loose in her chest.

She chokes back a sob when she feels his familiar calloused fingers wrapping around hers. She can’t remember the last time she had felt his touch.

“Listen to me, _please_ ,” he pleads with her, “You have done so much good for this city, and you’re capable of so much more.”

She shakes her head no against his.

“Yes, yes you have. You think I could’ve done this alone? You think I could’ve saved this city time after time without your help, without your guidance?”

She wants to believe him, but for so long now that voice inside her head has been telling her otherwise.

“You think I’d be half the man I am today without you?”

His thumbs are brushing away tears before his hands move to push hair out of her face. She has no words to answer him.

“We’re going to get through this together, get you out of here.”

Defiance and self loathing resurface and thunder through her veins.

“No. No, no, no. I’m _supposed_ to be here. I _deserve_ to be here. Don’t you see that?”

She looks into his eyes trying to make him understand. His face flares in anger, and she’s ready to accept the verbal lashing she knows she deserves for what she did. That’s the face she’s been waiting for.

“Oh yea?” he starts, his voice deep and his lip curling, “What about me then? I should be in here too. All the people I’ve killed, all the blood on my hands. Is that what you want? Because, God, Felicity, if you belong in here, then I should be buried six feet under it.”

His chest is heaving as he breathes angry puffs through his nostrils. This is not what she was expecting.

“I’m sorry,” she says meekly.

“Don’t be sorry, Felicity. Be the woman I know you are. Please,” he begs, his hands roaming over her arms and shoulders.

Maybe, just maybe he was right.

“Okay,” is all she can manage…because if it’s him that’s asking…

He sags against the bars in relief.

“We’re going to get him,” he says sternly, “and we’re going to get you out of here.”

He brushes away the remaining tears on her face before straightening his posture and tugging on his suit coat. Then he extends a single hand through the bars, open palmed.

She looks down at it, then up at his face. There’s a gleam in his eye that she loves to see.

“ _Partners_?” he asks.

She smiles a real smile for the first time in a long time, her mind thinking back to over three years ago.

“Partners.”  


She takes his hand, and they shake, holding it longer than necessary. He smiles softly as their fingers start to slide slowly apart.

“You’re remarkable, Felicity Smoak,” he says as he starts to back away. She can’t help but blush.

A barely recognizable feeling starts to creep its way into her chest as she watches him leave, her words barely above a whisper.

“Thank you for remarking on it.”

**It turns out, after you think you’ve lost everything, hope is all there’s left.**


End file.
